


A Golden Age

by VividEscapist



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Forever (TV)
Genre: Abe Morgan (very briefly), Aliens, Crossover, Crossover Ficathon, Gen, Historical, New York City, Nikola Tesla - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5212586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VividEscapist/pseuds/VividEscapist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry gets himself into a bit of trouble when a blue box lands in New York City. He and the Doctor are quickly called back to the year 1900 to help an inventor apprehend an alien on the loose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to give an extremely huge THANK YOU to PinkElephant5 for helping me out so much with this story. It definitely would not be the same without her invaluable assistance.
> 
> This takes place after season one for Forever, and between the debuts of Donna and Martha for Doctor Who.

Henry hadn’t been trying to be nosy. One could argue that such a trait was imperative to his profession, and a characteristic that he practiced generously most days, but honestly he’d just been curious. He hadn’t seen a police call box in decades, and never in the United States. To complicate the matter even further, Henry had walked past that street corner just last week and there hadn’t been a wooden box in sight. It piqued his interest to say the least.

Henry wasn’t in any rush so he watched the box awhile, standing back a fair distance to observe. The exterior of the box itself didn’t look particularly unusual. What struck him as odd was the manner in which passersby were reacting to it. Or rather, not reacting. People were walking on, faces forward, feet swift, occasionally sidestepping the box like it were an ordinary garbage can. Not a single person was concerned that a 1950s-style British antique had been dropped in the middle of New York City.

As a man born before the telegraph, Henry occasionally found himself surprised by subjects that didn’t perturb anyone else. It was damned near impossible to “keep with the times,” as Abe constantly told him. Perhaps there was a new vintage revival movement in the works for old telephones. (It would certainly be an improvement over those irritating portable devices people used these days.)

However, Henry discarded that idea when he saw a child walk past—perhaps eight years old. The girl’s attention was instantly captivated by the peculiar object. She stepped towards it for a closer look, but her mother pulled her along. Both were out of sight so quickly Henry was almost uncertain it had happened. So, young children noticed the box, and Henry—the second oldest man on Earth.

Henry could have stood musing for hours about why this was the case, but he decided to make more effective use of his time studying the anomaly up close. He paced circles around the box, analyzing the paint and the wood and a sign bearing the words “Pull to open.” He did. All Henry got was a phone that didn’t work, and an angry pedestrian pushing him out of the way of the sidewalk. With such minimal success thus far, Henry hadn’t even imagined that the doors would open; he very nearly hadn’t tried.  


But he did, and suddenly had a whole lot more to be curious about.  


Henry stepped in and out of the box numerous times, stammering all the way that this was simply not possible. He checked (and quadruple checked) that the width of the box’s exterior wasn’t more than that of a typical phone booth. There was no doubt. But behind the doors…there was a whole room inside! And a large one at that. The space was filled with wires and blinking lights and technology that looked even beyond the realm of the cyber crimes’ expertise. Henry couldn’t fathom to guess the capabilities of such machinery, but when the entire room started shaking, he figured he knew at least one.  


It had been a large enough adjustment to cars and those God-forsaken aluminium tubes people called airplanes. Henry wasn’t eager to take the next leap to…whatever this contraption was. Certainly not a wooden box. He elected to worry about classification at a later time. Instead, he grasped at the doors which had evidently closed without him noticing. There wasn’t a definitive handle, so Henry just pushed his body against them.  


They didn’t budge.  


The gadgets around the room were making quite a bit of noise now—especially the largest one at the center. Henry’s eyes scanned with a sense of urgency, searching for another exit. Or better yet, another person who could tell him what in the hell was going on. The machine appeared to be piloting itself which gave Henry a worrisome suggestion. Suppose he had managed to get himself trapped inside an unexplainable moving box, without one other passenger aboard to tell him where he was going, or how to get home afterwards.  


Curiosity had treated the cat better.  


A rough whooshing filled the air, accompanied by worse turbulence than Henry had ever experienced on a plane. He lost his balance, falling hard against the doors. Metal railings stood on either side of the entrance, but from the way they were rattling, they wouldn’t offer much support. Henry clutched them anyway.  


A muffled shout came from beyond the room. Due to the continuous noise, Henry could only make out that the voice was male, and not pleased. On the bright side, he wasn’t stuck here alone. However, taking a more pragmatic approach, the list of possibilities as to who this person was and what he would do when he saw Henry, was endless.  


“Oy! I didn’t say to take off yet!” A man in a brown suit sprinted to the center of the room. Henry couldn’t tell where he’d come from, (the floor didn’t provide a fantastic vantage point) but it was becoming clear that this machine was even larger than he’d thought. An entire room stuffed inside a box the size of a closet? Henry could accept that for now. But multiple rooms? Hallways? Stairs even? He felt dizzy.  


The man in the brown suit was hopping around the tall electronic structure, pulling levers and knobs. He was muttering to himself as well, but Henry was too busy brainstorming a way out of this mess to listen.  


“Oh, hello. How did you get in here?”  


The whooshing sound had stopped, thankfully, but Henry’s brain wasn’t doing any better at making sense of things.  


The man peered at Henry with interest. Henry didn’t detect any malice or anger, but he could hardly be too careful at this point.  
“There was a time when Genghis Khan couldn’t get through those doors, and now I get two stowaways in one week?”  
Henry didn’t care to ask what happened to the other person.  


“I think a week, anyway. Sort of difficult to keep track of time in here. You’re not late for a wedding too, are you?” The man looked Henry up and down. “Not a wedding suit. I’ve been to enough weddings to know. I’ve been married enough times to know. Bit of advice—don’t ever forget to ask the bride’s species before you say ‘I do.’”  


“Doors…” Henry managed. He indicated behind him. “They wouldn’t reopen.”  


“Oh, sorry.” The man winced, looking genuinely apologetic. “Safety feature. They stay sealed when the TARDIS is in flight. Honestly, you don’t want them flying open in the middle of the time vortex. It’s not pleasant.” He gestured to the doors.” You can try them now if you like.”  


Henry pulled himself to his feet, keeping the man in his peripheral vision. He pressed his palms to the doors’ surface and watched unbelievably as they swung open with ease. That wasn’t the unbelievable part. New York City was no longer outside the box, nor the United States, North America, or anywhere else on planet Earth. They were floating in outer space. Henry’s jaw slid open.  


“Yeahhh, probably should have warned you; can be a bit of a shock.” The man stepped forward to stand beside Henry. “I don’t know what time you’re from—I was just wandering around really, putting in random coordinates and dates—but it’s a lot to take in the first time. Not just for humans; you should’ve seen the first time I picked a Plutonian up. Has space travel begun yet for you?”  


“I’m…sorry?” Henry had understood less than half of that.  


“Well first thing’s first: I’m the Doctor.” The man flashed an animated grin. “This,” he indicated the room around them, “is the TARDIS—bigger on the inside if you hadn’t noticed—and we’re currently just outside your Milky Way galaxy.” After a quick peek through the doors, he confirmed. “Yes, I can see Keplen over there. Nice planet—one of my favorites—though the wildlife can be a tad grumpy. Now, when did we pick you up?”  


The man was speaking—babbling—like it were the most natural thing in the universe to be on Earth one moment, then the middle of outer space the next. Transported by a police box, nonetheless. Henry wasn’t the best judge of normality, but this definitely wasn’t it.  


On the other hand, for the time being he was completely at the mercy of ‘the Doctor.’ Might as well humor him. “Sunday, 12th of July, 2015. New York City.”  


“Ah, a Sunday. Never did care for those much. Quite boring.”  


Henry wanted to argue that boring wasn’t half bad—preferable to accidentally letting yourself be kidnapped by a spaceship—but the doors were still open, and making him uneasy. Confused as well. “How are we breathing?”  


“The TARDIS seals in all the oxygen. We’re fine for, oh, ten meters. Give or take. Can’t say you won’t float away though, so don’t go trying to hop out.”  
Henry closed the doors.  


“So, fancy a trip?” The Doctor jogged back over to the center structure and resumed his button pressing.  
Henry followed behind, slowly. He turned his head in circles, examining every aspect of the room for hope of understanding something. The bulbs protruding from the walls didn’t appear to serve any purpose—decoration?—but all else was beyond him.  


“When you say ‘trip…’” Henry had no intention of accepting voyage anywhere, but the more information he gathered about this person, the better chance he had of being brought home.  


“Anywhere and anywhen you like. Medieval France, Pablo Picasso during his blue period, the Whirlpool galaxy. Oh! We could go see the 5,004th Olympics in New New Amsterdam. One of my favorites.” The Doctor frowned. “We’ll have to be careful not to run into another me, though. I hate when that happens.”  


“Wait, wait. One moment.” Henry waved his hand, hoping to clear some of the madness from the air. “You’re telling me this contraption could actually take us back in time? That’s impossible.” Henry regretted the words immediately. A lot of impossible things had been happening. And who was Henry to talk? His own very existence was impossible.  


“Didn’t I mention? The TARDIS is a time machine too. Time, space. A parallel universe every now and then.” The Doctor’s entire demeanor dimmed suddenly, his shoulders slumping and eyes casting downward. “Though not often. It’s best to avoid those.” Then the melancholy was gone as quick as it came, replaced by chipper fidgeting. “So? Any place in mind?”  


The rapid mood transitions had Henry’s head spinning. The man went from buzzing with adrenaline and excitement, to the very definition of melancholy, and back again. Henry made a note to tread carefully.  


What had they been talking about again? Oh, yes: the improbabilities of time travel.  


“Putting the matter of the ability to travel in time aside,” Henry said, “the complications and interference of—”  


The shrill ring of a telephone stopped Henry short. At least something here was familiar.  


The Doctor spun around the center structure, picking up the device. “Hello? Nikola! Good to hear from you. How are those coils coming along?”  


Henry blinked. He didn’t know of many men named Nikola, and only one who was associated with “coils.”  


“Patent—that’s fantastic! And…what?”  


This Doctor was delusional if he thought he was speaking to Nikola Tesla. The man had died in 1943. Even overseas in the midst of a war, Henry had seen it all over the papers.  


“When did it arrive?”  


Then again, they’d called Henry delusional in 1815. Perhaps he should withhold judgement.  


“What day is…10th of October, 1900. Got it. We’re on our way!” The Doctor hung up the phone and turned to Henry.  


“What’s your name?”  


The simplicity of the question caught Henry off guard. He’d been imagining an inquiry more along the lines of—  


“Would you like to come along to help Nikola Tesla and I subdue a mechanical alien lose in New York?”  


—that. “Henry Morgan,” he replied stiffly. He couldn’t formulate an intelligent response to the second part yet.  


“Well, Henry, I’ll take that as a yes. Don’t worry; we’ll be arriving over a century before your time so no risk of running into you or someone else you know.”  


Henry stifled a snort. If only that were true. New York City was exactly where Henry had been in 1900. In fact, he’d met Tesla once—later on.  


“Oy, come on!” The Doctor was pressing buttons forcefully, but the machine wasn’t responding.  


Henry was slightly grateful for that, until it occurred to him that if they couldn’t move at all, he wouldn’t be making it back home.  


“What’s the problem, ol girl?”  


The room groaned. If Henry didn’t know better he would’ve called it sentient. The machine gave another complaint, then started to shake just as before.  
“There you go!” the Doctor called excitedly. “The TARDIS is just a tad stubborn. But not to worry—she’ll get us there one piece. Well...most of the time. There’s been the occasional crash. The shields are definitely up right now, though; I checked.”  


Henry groaned. That was just the opposite of comforting.  


The whooshing sound was even louder than before—if that were possible—now that Henry was standing beside the source. As the motion became more extreme the Doctor grabbed ahold of the machine’s control board. Henry followed suit.  


“Is it always this turbulent?”  


The grin on the Doctor’s face spread wider. “Allons-y!”  
“That’s not an answer,” Henry muttered. His fingertips were aching from being pressed against the structure so firmly. He’d never been prone to travel sickness but if he had to withstand any more rides like this, he might change his mind.  


The Doctor, however, appeared to be enjoying it. He was still holding on, but standing a lot straighter than Henry. His smile never left.  


After far too long for Henry’s liking, the shaking began to subside. He waited until the machine had completely stilled before easing his grip.  


“I don’t suppose this contraption has any seatbelts?” Henry asked, hopefully.  


“Nahhh,” the Doctor said. He was halfway to the door. “I took most of the seats out. It’s more fun this way. And the TARDIS isn’t dangerous—not really.”  


Henry had to disagree. The lack of safety features struck Henry with another thought—if he died mid-flight, where would he resurface? There couldn’t be any bodies of water on board. Would he materialize inside the frozen ice caps of a passing planet, fated to die and reawaken for the rest of time? Henry had had that experience with a frozen lake once. He didn’t relish a repeat.  


“Do you do that often?”  


“Pardon?” Henry said. Had he spoken out loud?  


The Doctor was standing directly in front of him now, his face entirely too close. Henry took a step back.  


“You zoned out there for, oh, over a minute at least. What’s on your mind?”  


Henry wasn’t sure how this man would react to him being immortal, but he definitely wasn’t bringing it up now.  


“It’s nothing.” Henry gestured to the door. “What are we doing here, exactly? Apprehending some kind of robot?”  


“Mechanical alien. Not the same thing at all, really. Robots are artificially designed, completely controllable under the right circumstances. Cybermen, for one. Mechanical aliens—called Gearbabies in some galaxies—are actually born out of metal and electricity, rather than flesh and blood. They usually—”  


Henry listened to the Doctor’s babbling half-heartedly, following him out the doorway. Was this how people felt around him? When the Doctor started using terminology Henry couldn’t even understand, he stopped listening. His attention was quickly captured by something else.  


They stepped outside the box into a park. The area looked vaguely familiar to Henry, but when he tried to look around, he caught sight of the cityscape in the distance. It wasn’t characteristic of 2015. There were no Empire State or Chrysler buildings, or shiny commercial banks. Everything was smaller and shorter and fewer. And exactly how Henry remembered it appearing in 1900.  


The Doctor picked a newspaper of a bench.  


“12th of October. Only off by two days; not bad. I’ve done worse before—like that time I missed by a year. That was a disaster…”  


The Doctor held up a copy of the New York Times for Henry to see. An article on the front page was discussing Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign for McKinley’s vice president. Henry remembered the election. He also remembered when President McKinley was shot just ten months later.  


Henry took the newspaper, flipping through fervently. He’d seen many issues of The New York Times in the early 20th century, and had even saved a few, observing how the condition decayed over the years. Every aspect of this copy looked genuine, but the paper was brand new. He rubbed his thumb across a headline and ink smeared.  


Henry stared at the skyline. “Okay—I believe you. I don’t know how, but we’re in 1900.”


	2. Chapter 2

“The how is the TARDIS. All of time and space.”  


Henry had forgotten that the machine had a name—or maybe blocked it out. He supposed he should start calling it that. When in Rome.  


The Doctor spent a moment surveying the area, then took the lead down a path through the park. Based off his pace, the Doctor either knew precisely where he was going, or was very enthusiastically wrong.  


“It hasn’t been too long since I visited Nikola in this time period—same body, anyway. Or was it earlier? He did was going off about Thomas Edison the whole time, anyway. Not that I blame him—that man is quite rude. In 1900, if I’m correct, he’s still living at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Not far from here.”  


‘Here,’ Henry soon realized, was Central Park. It was eerie to see it without the build-up and bustle of modern day that Henry had grown accustomed to. They passed the zoo on their left—if it could even be called that at this point. It was worlds smaller than the place he had taken Abe as a child. Nothing more than a glorified menagerie.  


How had New York changed so much without Henry noticing?  


The Doctor, noting Henry’s gawking, misinterpreted his astonishment at the sight of the past itself—rather than its comparison to how he remembered it.  


“Have you been to New York before?” the Doctor asked. You never mentioned where the TARDIS picked you up. I hadn’t gotten a chance to step outside yet.”  


“It was here,” Henry said. “Well, not here. New York. Newer New York.”  


“Oh, well that’s a coincidence! I wonder if the TARDIS knew Nikola was going to call. Tried to bring me to the right place ahead of time—just the wrong time. It seems like the area is quite different than what you’re used to. Have you lived in New York your entire life?”  


“Not exactly,” Henry said. “But for the last several years.” Henry regretted his response as soon as he said it. His usual cryptic answers—a fine line between lying and not—were sufficient for most people, but he could already tell that the Doctor was incessantly curious.  


Predictably, the Doctor opened his mouth again and Henry spoke up before he could pry. “I lived in England before that. I grew up there.”  


“Ah, yes. Brilliant. I’m usually over there when I’m on Earth, but I pop over to America occasionally.” The Doctor glanced around them. “New York more often than not, for some reason.”  


They exited the park, and the Doctor lead them south down the street.  


“Is it wise to leave that box alone back there?” Henry asked. “Won’t people wonder how it arrived? Or try to examine it?”  


“Nah, it’ll be fine.” The Doctor sounded unconcerned. “No one notices the TARDIS—most of the time.” The Doctor scrunched his face, turning his head towards Henry. “And the door always locks. I don’t know how you got in.”  


“Well, I can assure you it wasn’t intentional.” Henry was more concerned with why the TARDIS decided to take off with him inside.  


“You haven’t met me before, have you? A future version? Different face, maybe? Same name, same box.” The Doctor removed an electric, metal tube from his suit pocket and showed it to Henry. “Probably had one of these?”  


“No. Today was my first encounter, I assure you.” He squinted at the device the Doctor was holding. “What is that?”  


The Doctor pressed a button on the side and the tube grew longer, the top part blinking blue. “Sonic screwdriver. Very useful.” He put it away.  


They turned down another street, busier than the one previous. Henry heard the clang of a trolley as it passed by, followed by horse hooves clapping on cobblestone. It was the height of the morning and the sidewalk was filled to the brim with businessmen on their way to work with briefcases and top hats.  


“It doesn’t look like there’s an alien running loose around here,” Henry remarked. No one was running scared. The expressions he saw were no more concerned than ordinary people on a weekday.  


“Humans tend to have short attention spans. As long as something isn’t interfering with their schedule, they won’t notice.”  


“Wait. ‘Humans?’ As in, you’re not?” Henry could already guess the answer to that. Of course this strange, enigmatic man wasn’t human. It made sense. How would a human acquire a box that could surpass the laws of physics, and travel a hundred years into the past? Henry had assumed that Earth technology had simply progressed that far, but if he were an alien…  


“Nope. Time Lord. Last of them too. There it is!”  


Before Henry could question the content of that statement, the Doctor took off running. Henry blinked.  


“Wait!” He attempted to follow, pushing past pedestrians, uttering apologies behind him. Half a block later he screeched to a halt next to the Doctor. The man was staring up at a building, his face glowing in appreciation. Henry mimicked his gaze.  


“A beacon of the great Gilded Age,” the Doctor said. “This hotel was an icon of the highest prestige. Dinners, banquets, balls. The explorer Fredrick Cook stayed here at one time, and the Prince of Prussia. Then it was all torn down to make way for the Empire State Building.”  


Henry started to say ‘I remember,’ before quickly stopping himself. “Tesla lives here?”  


As way of answer, the Doctor pushed through the glass doors into the building. The lobby was full of people milling about, doing one thing or another, and Henry and the Doctor entered unnoticed. They walked through the foyer, amidst ornate pillars and sprawls of chairs, towards a grand staircase.  


“Do you know which room he’s in?” Henry asked.  


“No idea!” the Doctor said brightly. He took out the ‘sonic screwdriver’ from earlier, and started tinkering with it.  


“How is a screwdriver going to help?”  


“Nikola is an inventor. He’ll have come in contact with far more electricity and currents than the average person from this era. This should be able to detect that…ah hah!” The Doctor positioned the screwdriver in front of himself, and took the stairs up two at a time.  


Once at the top, Henry and the Doctor continued down a long hallway, stopping at the last door on the right. The screwdriver emitted a low whirring sound.  


“Here we are.” The Doctor knocked on the door. “Nikola?”  


Henry heard movement coming from inside. Moments later the door opened to reveal a man in a black suit. He was younger than when Henry had met him—with darker hair and a moustache—but the man was undoubtedly Nikola Tesla.  


“Hello, Doctor! I was wondering when you would be arriving.” Tesla gave Henry an appraising look. “And hello to you, as well. I do not believe we have met before.”  


That was partially true. Henry reached out to shake the man’s hand. “Henry Morgan.”  


“Picked him up just before you called!” the Doctor said cheerfully. He returned the sonic screwdriver to his coat pocket. “Now could you tell me more about this alien you saw…what did it look like exactly?”  


Tesla opened the door wider. “Come inside.”  


The three of them walked into the front room of the suite, decorated as a parlor. There was a fireplace on one wall, but judging by the lack of ashes, it hadn’t been used in a while. A lit chandelier hung over a table in the center of the room, and several chairs resided around the room’s edges. Tesla went straight to a desk beside the fireplace, which was cluttered with books and papers. After a bit of shuffling, he brought a stack over to the center table and put them down.  


“I first saw it about a week ago. I was working in my laboratory when I heard a gnawing sound. I had been certain of rats, but when I found the source, I saw the robotic creature. It was chewing on disconnected wires from one of my old projects. I tried to apprehend it, but when I approached, the creature became startled and emitted a small electrical charge before running off.”  


“How big was it exactly?” the Doctor asked. “The size of a rat?”  


Tesla shook his head, sifting through the papers. “Slightly larger. More the size of a cat, but it did not reflect the likeness of one.” He held up a rough sketch.  


The Doctor took the piece of paper, scrutinizing it. Henry studied the image over his shoulder. It was nothing like he’d ever seen. The body of the alien was oval-shaped, and at least a dozen pieces—presumably legs—protruded downward. There didn’t appear to be any facial features.  


“You said it was chewing,” Henry said. “Where exactly is its mouth?”  


“It was absorbed back into the creature when I startled it. I suppose it is only brought out when necessary for use.”  
The Doctor nodded, vaguely, still scrutinizing the sketch. “And you saw it again?”  


“Yes, a couple of days later.” Tesla picked up another paper. “I was walking down the street and I saw a boy poking through garbage in an alley. As I was passing by I heard the boy yelp in pain. When I looked over, the same creature was darting away, and the boy was nursing his arm. Luckily, he wasn’t deathly injured, but when I checked over his arm there were electrical burn marks.”  


“A stronger charge than what you saw before?” the Doctor asked.  


“Most certainly.”  


“It’s a defensive response then,” Henry said, glancing between the two men. “The alien is just scared?”  


“Possibly. But from what I’ve seen, scared aliens can cause as much damage as angry ones. Its electrical shocks might not be causing death yet, but they will soon.”  


“You know what it is?” Henry asked.  


“Yep.” The Doctor handed the paper back to Tesla. He took out his screwdriver and started fiddling with it again, occasionally holding the device up to his ear. “Dekliums. A rare breed of gearbabies. They come from a small planet, small population—usually don’t cause much trouble. They’re not violent by nature, but they’re generally skittish, and have powerful defenses. Judging by its size, this one is an adolescent.”  


“So it’s not as strong as an adult would be, then? It’ll be easier to catch?” Henry asked.  


“Not necessarily. It’s just as fast. And Dekliums mature quickly. It’ll be at full strength in a matter of days.” The Doctor turned his attention back to Tesla. “I can’t get a reading,” he said irritably, knocking his screwdriver against the table. “I’m going to need some tools.”  


“You are more than welcome to anything in my laboratory.”  


“Unfortunately, what I need is a bit past even your capabilities. I’m going to stop back at the TARDIS. What I do need you to get though are those wires that the Deklium was chewing on. You still have them?”  


Tesla nodded. “I have been examining them, trying to determine what exactly the creature is attracted to.”  


“Probably just the residual electricity. Dekliums feed on energy. Their planet is constructed entirely out of metal and machinery.”  


Tesla nodded. “I will retrieve them. And what then?”  


“Meet us in Times Square.” The Doctor banged his screwdriver on the table again. “We’ll start there.” He turned towards the door.  


“Wait, excuse me a moment, Doctor.” Tesla tilted his head. You said meet where?”  


It took Henry a moment to understand Tesla’s confusion. Of course, anyone living in New York would know of the square—even as small as it was in 1900—but not by that name.  


The Doctor had one eyebrow raised, squinting slightly at Tesla. Clearly, he hadn’t caught on yet.  


“Longacre Square,” Henry supplied. Quieter, to the Doctor, he said, “The name won’t change for four more years.”  


“Right, of course,” the Doctor said. “Longacre Square. One hour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word "gearbaby" comes from PinkElephant5. She actually said "...but something less lame" but I think it fits.


	3. Chapter 3

Henry waited on the TARDIS’s lone seat while the Doctor collected the parts he needed. At least, that’s what he assumed the man was doing. The Doctor was below Henry—underneath the platform that was the floor for most of the room—and making a great deal of noise. Occasionally, Henry would catch an enthusiastic shout, or a frustrated grunt, but nothing had been comprehendible since they’d arrived back at the TARDIS.  


“So, is this what you do? People call you with reports about aliens, and you go collect them?”  


“Well, there’s not usually a phone call. That’s just Nikola. And Winston. A few other people here and there. Most of the time I just wander around and trouble finds me. It’s brilliant!”  


Henry had to admit, that sounded a lot like him most of the time. Except when trouble found Henry, he usually ended up swimming in the East River. Or getting arrested. Or both.  


“Ah, come on!” There was a muffled crash. “Hey, Henry, could you press a button for me? This is stuck under something…it’s the orange one on the console.”  


“The what?”  


“Console. Giant blinking thing in the middle of the room? Has all the buttons?”  


Ah. So that’s what it was called. Henry stood up and walked towards the controls. “Where is it?”  


“To your left…no, right. Maybe up top? It changes quite often, actually. I should do something about that. The TARDIS likes to move things around.”  


Henry circled the console counter-clockwise, trying to locate something orange and button-like. He didn’t want to touch the wrong one, and send them spiraling to yet another century.  


“It might be square-shaped.”  


Eventually, Henry found an orange hexagon. He hesitated, then pressed it in. “Did that work?”  


“Ah ha! There we go. That’s everything.” The Doctor clamored back up to ground level, his hands wrapped around a metal box.  


“Is that a toaster?”  


“Nope. Not anymore. It used to be a toaster. I rebuilt it to track mechanical robots. It’s made half out of metal from Deklia; should locate the little guy in no time!” The Doctor placed the device on the seat next to the console, and pulled out his sonic screwdriver. “Dekli detector. Just needs a few more adjustments.”  


Henry looked at his watch, checking to see how long they had left before meeting Tesla. The time read five thirteen “Right,” he muttered. It was still set for his own time. In 2015. “Doctor, when this is all over, you will be able to return me back to my own time and day, right? My roommate will be worried if I’m gone all night without calling. And I have to be at work tomorrow.”  


“Oh, sure. Close enough, anyway. Not to worry.” The Doctor picked the device up and shook it next to his ear. “Almost done. What’s your job? That you have to be at tomorrow? Sailor? You look like a sailor. With the right clothes. You know, I met Christopher Columbus once.” He frowned. “Terrible idea.”  


“I can imagine. I’m a doctor, actually. Though currently, I work as a medical examiner for the police department.”  


“And you enjoy it?”  


Henry shrugged. “It’s certainly interesting.”  


“Finished!” The Doctor held up his not-toaster triumphantly.  


Henry leaned forward to inspect it. “It still looks just like a toaster to me.”  


“Just on the outside,” the Doctor insisted. “The inside if full of trackers and wires and something that will go “ding” when it gets a signal.”  


“‘Ding?’”  


“Ding. Now, let’s go catch ourselves a gearbaby.”  


Fifteen minutes later, they found Tesla standing on the sidewalk in Longacre Square. The area wasn’t much to look at, at this point, Henry noted. There were hotels, shops—a burlesque club. The Pabst Hotel sat in the future site of the iconic Times Building.  


“Nikola!” the Doctor said as they approached. “You have the wires.”  


“Yes, right here.” Tesla pulled said wires from his coat pocket and handed them to the Doctor. “I imagine you’re going to use the residue to track the alien?”  


“Right-o!” The Doctor dropped the wires into the dispenser of the toaster. “This shouldn’t take too l—”  


Before he could finish, the toaster knob popped up, the device admitting a bright bell tone.  


“Ahh.” Henry nodded. “‘Ding.’”  


“It’s close then?” Tesla asked.  


The Doctor turned in a circle, looking around the square.  


Henry attempted to do the same. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, although a few passersby were looking at the three of them strangely, staring at the device the Doctor was holding. Neither toasters nor alien trackers were common to this time period.  


“There!” The Doctor pointed to an alley across the street.  


Henry squinted, just barely about to make out the metal creature. It was scurrying across the ground. He opened his mouth to suggest approaching the alien slowly—maybe surrounding it from multiple angles so it couldn’t disappear—but the Doctor was already running towards it. Henry sighed and chased after him, Tesla following suit.  


“Doctor, wait! Maybe we should—” Before Henry could finish, the alien noticed them coming.  
The Doctor was almost within arm’s reach of the alien, but it emitted a high-pitched whine and took off in the opposite direction. It crawled between and under the legs of pedestrians, earning shrieks along the way.  


Henry and Tesla caught up to the Doctor, who was standing still, aiming his detector at the alien, along with his screwdriver.  


“I don’t think short attention spans are going to stop them from noticing now,” Henry said dryly.  


The Doctor knocked his screwdriver against the tracker. “I’m trying to block its use of electrically charge. It will only work temporarily, but I’d rather not have it shocking every person on this street.”  


“Doctor,” Nikola said. “Is there any way you can in fact change that machine’s calibration to operate in reverse? Instead of tracking the location of the creature, have it come to you?”  


The Doctor considered that. “Well, if I hotwire the fragment links…flip the circuit, rearrange some parts…yes! That could work. Nikola, you’re brilliant!” The Doctor clapped Tesla on the shoulder, who looked rather taken aback by the gesture.  


“If I can just—”  


All of a sudden, Henry heard the terrified whinny of a horse down the street, followed by a crash. He looked at the Doctor. “Were you able to block the alien’s charge?”  


He glanced at the screwdriver, and shook his head. The three of them sprinted down towards the crash.  


A buggy was turned on its side in the middle of the street, the animal lying motionless beside it. A man crawled out from the buggy, clutching his head.  


Henry rushed over to him. “Sir, are you alright? I’m a doctor.”  


The man blinked back.  


“What’s your name?” Henry asked.  


“Err…Edward Mathenson.”  


“Can you tell me what day it is?”  


“...October 12th.”  


It took Henry a moment to remember that that was in fact correct. “Can you walk?”  


The man nodded, taking a few steps. “I was just on my way home, and this beastly thing ran out in front of the buggy. Then my horse went down…”  


The man pointed, and Henry turned around. Tesla was kneeling by the horse.  


“The animal is dead,” Tesla said. “Same type electrical burns as the boy, before, but worse.”  


“Doctor?” Henry asked. “How quickly can you recalibrate that device?”  
**************************************************************************************************************************************************** 

They returned to Tesla’s suite so the Doctor would have room to work on the “Dekli detector.” He sat on the floor in the front room, leaned against one of the chairs, with the device half-deconstructed on his lap. He was twisting and moving wires around, occasionally using his sonic screwdriver to adjust something. Henry had no idea what he was adjusting, but he hoped it was working.  


Henry had hovered over the Doctor’s shoulder at first—attempting to offer some assistance—but he quickly figured out that the technology was far beyond his understanding. He had begun pacing around the room instead. It was incredibly frustrating to not be able to do anything productive when a dangerous alien was on the loose in the middle of a city that had no idea how to handle it.  


He glanced back at the Doctor once more, who was still deep in concentration. It didn’t appear he would be done in the next several minutes. Henry decided to take a short walk outside. If nothing else, he could get some fresh air.  


Tesla, noting Henry’s leaving, offered to join him. Once they were outside, he said, “Many people seem to consider me to be one of the most intelligent men in the world, but it is always rather humbling when the Doctor stops by. I see how much more I have to learn to even begin to fulfill that.”  


“I’m beginning to get that feeling as well,” Henry agreed. “Does he come see you often?”  


“From time to time. Usually I call him when something is around that should not be.”  


“How long have you known him? You seem quite comfortable with the idea of all of this—space, aliens time travel.”  


“I first encountered the Doctor many years ago—long before I had created anything of any importance—but he already knew who I was. Or, rather, who I would become. I do not know how long he has known me; he’s not one for doing things in order.”  


Henry hummed an agreement. That sounded pretty likely. “I guess when you’re constantly jumping from year to year, it’s hard to do anything chronologically.”  


Henry glanced around the sidewalk absent-mindedly. It was no early evening, and those same businessmen from morning were on their way home. He was about to go back into the hotel when someone across the street caught his attention. A man was stopped on the corner, studying a pocket watch. The same pocket watch Henry had in his coat now.  


“Is that…?” Tesla stepped forward, following Henry’s gaze.  


“We should go back inside,” Henry said, hurriedly. The Doctor had warned that meeting a past version of yourself was a bad idea. There was enough going on without adding that into the mix.  


Henry pushed through the doors into the hotel lobby. Tesla stared across the street a moment longer before joining him.  


Henry ushered Tesla beside one of the pillars. After checking that no one was in close-enough distance to overhear, he spoke. “I know you don’t owe me anything, but could you please not mention anything to the Doctor about what you just saw?”  


Tesla furrowed his brow. “I gather my mind is not playing tricks on me, then. You don’t seem surprised to see another version of yourself here.”  


“Not surprised, no. I knew I was in the area…I didn’t expect to actually see myself, though.” Henry let out a breath. “I am just glad he didn’t see me. That would have surely caused some discontent in time, because I know I never met another version of myself when I lived in 1900.”  


“That is not a future version?” Tesla asked. “If you keep travelling with the Doctor?”  


Henry shook his head. “It’s a long story.” He thought for a moment. “Nikola, in many years you’re going to meet me again. A younger me. I’ll look the same, but you can’t mention any of this. It won’t have happened for me yet.”  


“I understand. Tesla tilted his head to the side. “You are not one for doing things in order, either, then?”  


Henry chuckled. “I used to be. A lot has changed today.”  


“Nikola! Henry! I’ve got it!”  


They turned to see the Doctor rushing down the staircase, the alien tracker held under one arm. He ran across the lobby to them, warranting several annoyed glares from hotel employees.  


“It’s all ready. Just a bit of tinkering here and there. Should work perfectly. We just need a secluded place to attract the alien, where it will be easy to collect.”  


“We can use my laboratory,” Tesla said. “It went there before. It should have no difficulty returning.”  


“Brilliant!” The Doctor handed the detector to Tesla. “Lead the way.”  
**************************************************************************************************************************************************** 

Tesla brought them to a tall building on East Houston Street. They entered on the ground floor, into a large, open room. There were objects of all sizes pushed against the walls and sitting on tables, along with an endless mountain of blueprints.  


Tesla indicated a pile of papers on a table in the center of the room. “I have been drafting blueprints from my experiments in Colorado. I intend to create a tower to send communication signals across the Atlantic, but that requires funding. The money, I am still working on.”  


Henry knew he would eventually get the funding. But the success of his tower…that was another story. He didn’t say anything.  


The Doctor put the detector on the table, and used his sonic screwdriver at it. It went ding again. “There we go. The Deklium should be here any minute now. Well, maybe several minutes, if the little guy is far away. Couldn’t have gotten too far, though. Gearbabies don’t move around much. And there aren’t many places around here yet that are more bustling with electricity than your lab. He wouldn’t have strayed far.”  


Henry took a seat in a chair beside the table.  


The Doctor—less-equipped with patience, it seemed—walked aimlessly through the lab, studying every object he could find. Occasionally, he would pick one up and ask Tesla a question, before launching off in a tangent about it.  


On the umpteenth occasion of this, Tesla interrupted the Doctor part-way through. “Doctor, wait. Listen.”  


All three of them went silent. Henry could just barely make out the sound of chewing.  


The Doctor nodded. “Split up and look for it,” he whispered.  


Henry started for the dimmest corner in the lab, scouring the floor with every step. As he worked his way back to the middle of the room, the noise grew slightly louder. He looked up and saw a cabinet against the wall. The bottom drawer was open.  


Henry almost called the Doctor over, but decided that making noise was too much of a risk. He approached the cabinet exceedingly slowly, picking up his feet in order to not make a sound. He peeked inside the drawer. The bottom was full of discarded metal rods and wires, and the Deklium was sat right in the middle.  


Henry considered his options. He wasn’t going to try to grab the alien alone—undoubtedly getting himself electrocuted in the process—but he couldn’t risk leaving it alone while he got the Doctor. He might run off.  


Henry leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better view of the alien. That must have been too much noise, because the Deklium suddenly jerked. Henry heard the same high-pitched whine from earlier. Before he realized what he was doing, Henry slammed the drawer closed.  


“Doctor! Over here!” Henry shouted. He held his hand over the drawer, fighting the Deklium’s struggling inside. He was thankful the cabinet was made out of wood instead of metal.  


The Doctor ran to the cabinet, kneeling on one side of Henry; Nikola flanked the other.  


“It’s inside there, I gather? Doesn’t sound pleased.”  


Henry rolled his eyes. “I would have to agree with that. Tell me you can calm it down?”  


“Should I retrieve your device, Doctor?” Nikola asked.  


“Not necessary. It just needs a little sonic.” The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the cabinet.  


“Now this is a situation where a screwdriver is actually appropriate,” Henry said.  


The sonic screwdriver emitted its typical buzzing as the Doctor held it out. The banging inside the drawer started to slow down, then stopped altogether.  
Henry lifted his hands hesitantly. The drawer didn’t move. “What did you do?”  


“Just put him to sleep. He’ll be fine in, oh, a couple of hours—and calmer too. I’ll have him safe and sound on the TARDIS by then.”  


Nikola opened the drawer and picked the Deklium up. He held it close to his face, scrutinizing the body. “It is a beautiful creature. Brilliantly made.” He handed the alien to the Doctor.  


The Doctor nodded. “Absolutely brilliant. Dekliums are a very solid species. This little guy, though…” He leaned closer to inspect the alien. “He is exceptionally skittish. I think he might have caught a bit of a virus—computer virus that is. Maybe some interference with the technology on Earth. It’s a good thing he didn’t land and later in Earth’s history. All the computers you humans develop would have driven his programming completely haywire.”  


“Can you fix it?” Tesla asked. “This, ‘virus.’”  


“Oh, sure. I’ll work on him in the TARDIS before we take him back to his own planet.”  


On their way out of the lab, Henry picked up the alien tracker—the Doctor had his hands more than full with the Deklium. When three of them exited the building, the sun was setting.  


“This,” Henry said, “has been the longest day I have ever experienced. In more ways than one.”  


“Oh, you should have seen some of the times Nikola and I have had. Remember the Gecho? That was great fun.”  
Henry looked between the two of them. “A gecko?”  


“Not like the animal, I’m afraid,” Tesla said. He winced. “That would have been easier. A gecko would not have burnt down my laboratory.”  


“I said it wasn’t a good idea to bring it inside.” The Doctor turned to Henry. “Gechos are extremely flammable. I wouldn’t recommend putting them near anything that you would mind losing.” He paused. “Or, near yourself for that matter. Oven mitts help. Or a hazard suit.”  


Nikola stared at the Deklium. “Well, Doctor, I suppose you two should be getting back to the TARDIS, before your screwdriver loses its effect. “It was good to meet you, Henry.” He smiled coyly. “I hope to see you again.”  


“Likewise,” Henry said. “Good luck with your work.”  


“Let me know if you see any more of these, Nikola.” The Doctor indicated the alien. “He must have slipped through the rift, although I don’t know how he ended up here.” He paused. “I do hope there isn’t another one in New York. Cardiff is enough.”  


“If I see anything else strange, you will be the first to know,” Tesla assured. “After all, you are the only person I know who can subdue aliens.” He looked back at the building. “I should go back inside—make sure the creature hadn’t chewed through anything important.”  


With a last nod, Tesla disappeared into the lab.  


Henry and the Doctor started down the sidewalk.  


“The TARDIS is a bit of a walk from here.”  


Henry took in the scene around them. The street was less crowded than before, but not completely empty. A horse and buggy passed by. Children were playing on the sidewalks, throwing balls and running after each other. The orange glow from the sunset made everything seem quieter.  


Progress was a good thing. Henry knew that, and he wouldn’t change what the world had accomplished, but sometimes he yearned for the days like this. “I don’t mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That sailor comment was for Truth, and her Horatio Hornblower obsession.


	4. Chapter 4

It was dark by the time Henry and The Doctor arrived back at the TARDIS. They took off from Earth, parking in mid-space so the Doctor would fix the Deklium. While the Doctor worked, Henry decided to examine the console. He hadn’t had ample opportunity to do so previously, but the more time he spent in the machine, the more intrigued he was by its strange technology.  


“It’s lucky we found this little guy when we did. The computer bug in here was only getting worse.”  
Henry hummed in agreement. He side stepped The Doctor’s pile of tools, strewn across the floor.  


“Could you pass me that?” The Doctor mumbled through the screwdriver in his teeth.  


Henry looked where he was pointing—at some sort of modernized wrench—and handed it over. He turned his attention back to the console, poking cautiously at a blinking knob.  


“At least this one is just a little guy. The virus would have been much more volatile in an adult Deklium.”  


The alien made a soft, distressed sound.  


“Oh, hang in there. I’m almost done.” The Doctor soothed.  


“What are you doing to it, exactly?” Henry asked. He touched a wire, then jerked his hand back at the unexpected heat.  


“Clearing the system, a bit of reprogramming too. It’s just—”  


Henry didn’t hear the rest of that sentence. His entire body was suddenly tingling, then burning. His vision went black. There was a shout—from himself or The Doctor, Henry didn’t know—and then all sensation disappeared.  


His last conscious thought was that it’d been years since he’d died from electrocution.  
**************************************************************************************************************************************************** 

Henry came to, anticipating the frigid, sharp, stabbing sensations of being encased in ice. Instead, his gasps were met with a breath of air. He sputtered, spitting out water, and struggling to gain his bearings in this…swimming pool? The water he was in smelt distinctively of chlorine, and was clear to the bottom. All of seven feet, according to the height markers on the side of the pool. Henry swam to the edge and pulled himself out of the water. The room he was in emulated the inside of a rec center. The walls were white, the ground was foam, and there were even towel racks in the corner. Henry wrapped a blue towel around his waist, and used another to dry his dripping hair.  


“This was certainly not expected,” he muttered. Henry examined the rest of the room, but it was clear that nothing else in it was going to be of use to him. He exited through the sole door, and was met with a long, winding hallway. Each side was scattered with doors of all kinds, and at the end of the hallway, there was a staircase. A staircase going down.  


“Hello?” Henry called, hopefully. “Doctor?” He had to still be on the TARDIS. The last he remembered, they had been floating in the middle of vacant space—not in the near vicinity of any inhabited planets—and this was definitely not the infinite ice death of suffocation Henry had been expecting. He stopped drying his hair, and draped the extra towel around his neck.  


“Doctor?” Silence. Henry sighed. It was unlikely that the other man would be able to hear Henry from this location, but he’d been hoping. Finding his own way back to the console room was not a likely prospect.  


He started with the doors on the right. The first two were empty. Henry heard a growling the moment he opened up the third, and closed it immediately. The rest were fairly identical in terms of content; Henry saw piles of books, chairs pushed against the walls, stacked high with tools and metal boxes, and miscellaneous objects from different times and places. One of the rooms on the left was full of household items Henry recognized from his own era. The next had globes and telescopes more fit for the 1600s. Henry could only imagine the kind of antique shop the Doctor could cultivate.  


Henry’s expectations were significantly low by the time he reached the last door. He didn’t think down was where he needed to go, but he was going to have no choice left apart from the stairs. However, when Henry pushed open his thirtieth door in a row—stained red wood—he found a library inside. All the previous rooms had been small and open in layout, but this one was larger than Henry’s lab at home. The rows of ceiling-high shelves obstructed his view to the other side. Henry gave the hallway another brief glance, then entered the room. The door closed behind him.  


The library was dim. The only lighting came from candle chandeliers, hanging from the ceiling twenty feet above.  


“Hello?” Henry called. He looked through the lines of shelves, finding nothing too unusual. The room was pretty standard for a library—if not a bit older than those Henry was accustomed to in 2015. Henry felt foolish, exploring it dressed in nothing but a towel.  


The books were all hardcover, ranging in condition. Most of the spines weren’t labeled in English, and many were covered in strange, circular symbols than Henry didn’t recognize. If he hadn’t been otherwise engaged, Henry would have loved to spend hours examining the collection. Maybe if the library were a bit warmer, as well. The TARDIS’s temperature wasn’t suited for walking around mostly naked, and Henry was starting to shiver. He loosened the towel around his neck and spread it over both his shoulders.  


Now that he was partially through the room, Henry could see another door—thank God. He’d been afraid to find the library without an exit, forced to retreat back to the useless hallway. As Henry approached, he could see that this door was different than the library’s entrance. It was blue and metallic; it didn’t complement the library’s burgundy walls in the least.  


Before Henry could reach for the handle, the door burst open. The Doctor stood on the other side.  


“Ah! There you are! I was quite worried, what with you dying and the whole disappearing act and…what happened to your clothes?”  


Henry sighed. “I wish I knew.” He’d quite liked that coat, too. One would think that after two hundred years he would stop becoming attached to his clothes.  


The Doctor gave him an appraising look. “Does this happen every time?”  


Henry started to offer an innocent, confused response, but there was no point. The Doctor’s casual demeanor clearly indicated he knew what was going on. Henry doubted that he would try to dissect him, or turn him in to some kind of authorities; that would be quite hypocritical given the Doctor’s own abnormalities.  


“Every time, yes. Could I possibly borrow some clothes? This isn’t particularly comfortable.”  


The Doctor motioned for Henry to come through the doorway. “There’s a closet or two this way. Next to the control room. This library isn’t usually here, though. I suppose the TARDIS was trying to lend you a hand. The swimming pool is usually several floors down.”  


Henry followed the Doctor into another hallway—thankfully not the same one he’d just been in. He directed Henry to another room.  


“There are clothes in there. That one’s usually the first closet I try when looking for a new wardrobe. Not a bad selection at all—though it’s unfortunately lacking in scarves.”  


Henry nodded, gratefully. He entered the room. The inside was full of racks of clothing—mostly combinations of shirts and pants—and not much else, as far as Henry could tell. He didn’t bother examining farther than the front of the room. He put on a pair of dark pants, and the first button-up shirt he could find. After a moment's consideration, he grabbed a coat—not unlike the ones he owned himself.  


The Doctor was waiting beside the doorway when Henry came back out.  


“Console room is this way. That is, unless it moved again.” The Doctor led Henry down the hallway, towards another blue door. “I once got lost in one room of the TARDIS for a year. It was a kitchen, so it wasn't actually the worst situation.”  


Henry hadn't enjoyed his time being lost for an hour. A year definitely didn't sound appealing.  


“I put the Deklium, so don't worry about him. I must have got his wires crossed, but it’s fine know. He's in hibernation mode. Won't wake up until after we drop him back home.”  


Henry just nodded. He wasn't sure exactly how the Doctor would react to his condition, and the anticipation was unnerving.  


The other side of the door was, thankfully the console room. The Doctor headed for the console, adjusting something on the controls. Henry followed him, treading carefully. The Deklium was lying on the TARDIS seat, still and powered down.  


“So,” the Doctor started. “You can't die then? Or, you do...you just don’t stay that way.”  


“That’s the long and short of it. I always come back in water, but that's as much as I know.”  


The Doctor nodded, calmly. “Interesting. I haven’t come across this before. Immortality, sure. Once in a while. Usually the original body regenerates or repairs itself. This has happened many times? It's unlimited?”  


“As far as I know—which, honestly, isn’t far. I've been trying to figure this out for two hundred years and the most I know, is that even the weapon responsible for my first death can't kill me for good. If it's not unlimited, I haven’t hit the maximum yet. And I have died many times.”  


It felt strange to discuss his secret so openly with a person he knew so little. Abe had grown up with the knowledge, and now Jo knew, but Henry was still treading carefully with what he said to her.  


The Doctor didn’t look confused or concerned, like Henry had imagined. He was fascinated.  


“How did you die the first time?”  


“I was shot on a ship, and thrown overboard.”  


“The water.”  


“Exactly. I've always come back in water since. The closest body of water. It has to be large enough.”  


“Yes, it would be a problem if you started popping up in goldfish bowls and bathtubs. Well, that depends on whose bathtub. I once ended up in a Roman bathhouse...” The Doctor cleared his throat. “We should be getting the Deklium back home, then. Deklia—lovely planet. Bit noisy, what with all the gear whirring about.” 

The Doctor pulled a lever on the console, and the TARDIS started shaking.  


Henry sighed. He held on to the seat for balance, watching the Deklium carefully for any signs of consciousness.  


“We probably shouldn’t stay long, though,” the Doctor said. “They’re not keen on visitors. Last time I was there—”


	5. Chapter 5

After they left Deklia, the Doctor was quiet. Extremely quiet. He walked around the console, poking at knobs and buttons, but even with Henry’s limited understanding of the TARDIS, he could tell the Doctor's fidgeting wasn’t accomplishing anything.  


Henry sat in the lone chair next to the console. “You don't normally travel alone, do you?”  


“Hm? Well, not quite. I have friends, companions...from time to time.” The Doctor spoke softly, with an edge of wistfulness lining his words.  


“But not now?” Henry asked carefully.  


“No, not anymore. I had a friend, recently, but she had to move on. She deserved to have her own life.”  


“You loved her, didn’t you?”  


The Doctor looked up. “What?”  


“Your friend—the one you keep mentioning. What was her name?”  


“Her name was Rose…is Rose. She’s still alive; she’s fine.” The Doctor’s shoulder’s drooped. “She’s with her family.”  


“You can’t see her? With all the places you say this,” Henry motioned around the room, “TARDIS can travel to?”  


“No,” the Doctor said, shaking his head. He resumed his tinkering. “Parallel universes are outside the TARDIS’s reach. It was just chance that we ended up there in the first place. The connection’s gone.”  


“I'm sorry. It’s always painful—losing someone.”  


The Doctor sighed. “That's just it. My friends—they always leave. Either they outgrow me, they move on, or they grow old and then...well, you understand that part.”  


Henry nodded solemnly. He might not understand those specific circumstances with Rose, but loss…it was all the same. “I had a wife—Abigail. We raised a son together. We were happy for so many years. Then one day, she just left. I had no idea where she had gone, and I didn’t hear a word for thirty years. Then I found out she had been dead all that time.” He closed his eyes. “And that she died protecting me.”  


They were silent for several minutes.  


“I've only been this way for two hundred years,” Henry said eventually, “and it's been hard enough. I can't imagine...how old are you exactly?”  


“Nine hundred and three.” The Doctor thought for a moment. “I think, anyway. It might have lost track somewhere along the way.”  


“Well, I suppose I’ll get there one day. Unless I can find a way out of my curse before then. But I don’t think that’s likely...”  


The Doctor paused. “You know, as far as solving problems, two scientists are better than one. And the technology on the TARDIS is far more advanced than anything your species will ever achieve.”  


Henry frowned. He had a feeling he knew what the Doctor was implying. “Yes, I figured that when you mentioned time travel.”  


The Doctor’s voice picked up. “What better place to study your immortality?” He started pacing around the console. “You could stay. We could study your DNA, to start; I have a machine or two that can analyze every detail in less than a second. How much sleep do you require? As much as an average human? We could go to—”  


“Doctor, wait, slow down.” Henry hopped off the chair. “I can’t stay with you permanently. I have my son, my friends, my job. I can't abandon everything.”  


The Doctor stopped pacing. His excitement dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. A pained smile replaced his authentic one. “Right. Of course. I just thought—”  


“That you’d finally found a companion who wouldn’t have to leave. Who wouldn’t grow old and die.” Henry sighed. “I'm sorry. Maybe, one day...when everyone's gone...” Henry swallowed a hard. In recent years he’d been struggling to come to terms with Abe’s old age. The idea that Jo, Lucas, and Hanson—even Lieutenant Reece— would all be gone in a handful decades as well, was excruciating. “But I can’t now.”  


The Doctor brushed his hand over the console. “Quite right. Don’t worry about me. I’ve travelled alone plenty of times before; I always find something to do. Well, I always some trouble to get in to. But that’s half the fun.” He smiled at Henry—genuinely this time. “Let's get you home then, eh? When was it? 2015?”  


Henry nodded. “July 12th. It was afternoon.” He joined the Doctor, standing beside the console.  


“Right, a Sunday. Dull, but I suppose you wouldn't mind getting back to a slower place.” The Doctor pulled a monitor close to himself and swiped his fingers across it.  


“Perhaps. For a while.” Henry glanced at the screen, intending to double check the date the Doctor was inputting. The display was full of meaningless circles.  


“Here we go,” the Doctor said. “12th of July. Afternoon—ish. Hold on.”  


The TARDIS started its usual whooshing and shaking. Henry was almost used to it at this point, but he still braced himself against the console. He didn’t want to risk falling on his head and having to find his way out of the swimming pool again.  


“This can't honestly be how the machine is supposed to run!” Henry shouted over the noise. “Are you sure you're doing everything correctly?”  


“The TARDIS needs six pilots to fly. Technically.” The Doctor shrugged, which Henry could barely perceive over the turbulence. “But this is fine!”  


Henry laughed. “Of course you would think this is fine. But some of us like to keep our organs unblended.”  


The Doctor grinned in response.  


A minute later, the noise and motion ceased. Henry relinquished his grip on the console, taking a few steps forward to test his balance. When he was satisfied, he faced the Doctor. “Where did you land, exactly?”  


“No idea. I just picked the when. The TARDIS insisted on the where.”  


Henry walked over to the doors. Cautiously, he opened them, giving a preliminary peek outside. He saw jars, test tubes, books—his desk. “It's my lab.” He turned back around. “It could have just landed outside.”  


The Doctor hopped around the console, coming to stand beside Henry. “Maybe she wanted to make it easier for you, after the ordeal you had with the swimming pool. I think she likes you. Somewhat surprising, actually; I’d have thought that the immortality bit would have driven her mad.”  


“You keep describing the TARDIS like that—as if it were sentient.” Henry froze. Gears clicked into place. “Tell me this machine isn’t actually—”  


“Of course she’s alive! How do you think she was smart enough to find you? And lock you inside while she took off? Though I’m sure she’s sorry about that part…The TARDIS always knows what’s going on. Even more than I do, most of the time. She’s been with me since the beginning.”  


Henry smiled. “So, at least you always have one friend to stick around.”  


“I suppose.” The Doctor leaned rocked on his toes. “So…I suppose this is goodbye, then. You have people to get back too.”  


Henry inclined his head. “You can visit, Doctor. Stop by whenever you like. No time has passed, correct?” He glanced outside the TARDIS. “Assuming you’ve landed this accurately. I seem to recall you saying you were once off by a year.”  


“Not often,” the Doctor said quickly. “I brought Rose to see her mum plenty of times, and it was fine after that first mishap. Well, then there was that other time…but I was able to reverse that one. No harm done.”  


“I’ll pretend to believe you. But honestly, any time. Just try not to land the TARDIS inside the morgue. You’ll never get Lucas to leave you alone.”  


The Doctor smiled. “Well, then, Henry Morgan. I suppose I’ll see you around. Do try not to get electrocuted again, in the meantime. Or any other manner of death, for that matter.”  


“I can’t make any promises. Abe says I’m incurably reckless.” Henry stepped out into his lab. He gave the room a quick once-over; it didn’t appear that anything had changed since he’d left that morning. Hopefully it was indeed the same day.  


He looked back at the TARDIS. The Doctor gave a quick wave before closing the doors. Henry took several steps backwards. Within seconds, the mechanical whooshing that Henry was now quite familiar with filled the air, and the box began to flicker in and out of sight.  


“So that’s what it looks like from the outside,” he murmured.  


“What the hell is that? How did it get in here?”  


Henry spun around. Abe was standing half-way down the stairs, eyes glued on the TARDIS.  


“Well…”  


“I was wondering where you went. I checked down here earlier and—did that thing just disappear?” Abe took the rest of the stairs in stride and rushed over to where the TARDIS had stood moments before. He swiped his hands through the newly-vacated air.  


Henry looked on, uncertainly. “Abe, it’s not there anymore.”  


Abe stopped moving his hands. “Yeah, no kidding. What have you been doing all afternoon?”  


“Just the afternoon?” Henry reached for his watch, then remembered it would be useless in giving him the correct time at this point.  


“Well, yeah. It’s eight-thirty.” Abe squinted at Henry. “Are you okay?”  


“Of course. I’m just grateful we landed that accurately.”  


“Yeah, sure, I’m going to pretend that makes sense. Now can you explain to me what weird crap you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in this time?” Abe said, faintly irritated.  


Henry couldn’t resist teasing him just a little. “Well—and I say this in complete honesty—it’s a long story.”  


“Henry, I swear to God—”  


“Which I will tell you. As soon as I get some coffee. I’m fairly certain I haven’t slept in days.”  


Abe glanced back to where the TARDIS had been. “I still can’t believe that thing just vanished. Yeah, you can’t die and that’s nuts enough, but now you can make objects disappear?”  


“Abraham, trust me. It gets much stranger than that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
